


Pull the Anchor and Come What May

by neonsign



Series: Protagshipping Week [2]
Category: Persona 3, Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6324655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonsign/pseuds/neonsign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was by chance that he’d stumbled across the busker. The only reason his usual path home from work had changed was because he heard of a new bookstore’s grand opening sale and had gone to check it out. It wasn’t far out of his way, just a couple blocks over and across a footbridge that stretched over some train tracks. And there had sat a boy surrounded by art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pull the Anchor and Come What May

**Author's Note:**

> **Day 2:**  
>  **Gongoozler** _(noun)_ – an idle spectator, one who stares idly at something for a long time

“I’ll give you a discount if you stop doing that.”

Souji’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“You keep staring,” the busker stated, eyes firmly on the easel before him. “You’ve _been_ staring for about ten minutes now.”

Left and right, Souji checked for anyone else he could’ve been talking to, but there was just him, leaning against the railing of the footbridge. Everyone else was passing by. At most they gave the artist’s display a curious glance, but no one was stopping to buy anything.

“I didn’t mean to,” Souji said. The thought of leaping over the railing onto the train tracks below was starting to feel appealing. “Sorry.”

“No worries. You interested in buying something?”

Approaching him hadn’t been part of the plan but he could hardly just turn tail and run. There was no going back. Souji walked over to the front of the display and crouched down to look at some of the pictures lined up in crates. There was a paper on the biggest crate listing picture prices by canvas size, but also a flat rate for portraits.

“You do caricatures?”

The busker looked up from his easel and stared him straight in the eye. His expression didn’t change, but he still managed to exude immense irritation. It was impressive.

“They’re not _caricatures_. They’re portraits.” He reached down beside him and picked up a canvas beside his folding metal chair, a little bigger than a standard piece of paper, and held it so Souji could see. On it was a drawing of a girl with short green hair, a content smile on her face. “See? Portraits.”

Whatever he said, the style was still kind of cartoony.

“I see,” Souji said. He didn’t.

“Do you want one?”

Souji’s eyes moved to the second folding chair, in front of and a little to the left of the guy’s easel. Not that he was about to say anything against this person’s chosen trade, but sitting and having his own portrait done for money felt entirely narcissistic.

“If you’re not buying anything then please leave,” the artist said vaguely, most of his attention back on his easel. “You’re scaring away customers.”

“Me? How?”

“You look like a detective checking for my permit or something.”

Souji ran a hand over the front of his suit. “Is what you’re doing illegal?”

The artist shrugged. “Are you buying something or not?”

There was a painting of a cityscape at night catching his eye, all blues and reds and purples. A little more realistic than the portraits. His apartment didn’t have anything hanging on the walls. That would be the first.

Souji pointed to it. “I’ll take that.”

“Nice.”

After the transaction was done, Souji was walking down the walkway with the painting under his arm, wrapped in brown paper and taped with a kind of clumsy carelessness the quality of work wouldn’t suggest. It was just big and long enough to be an unwieldy pain in the ass. Just before reaching the stairs that led down to the street, he looked over his shoulder. There weren’t any customers anywhere near the busker; Souji hadn’t been scaring away anyone at all.

The painting went in his living room on his wall behind the couch. He hadn’t expected one thing to make that much of a difference, but it made the place feel a lot less bare. And he hadn’t even noticed that it _did_ feel bare. There weren’t many personal touches; adding them had never really crossed his mind. He must’ve had more important things to worry about, but suddenly he couldn’t think what they might have been. Studying, he supposed. Work.

Staring at the painting now, Souji tilted his head and frowned.

It was by chance that he’d stumbled across the busker. The only reason his usual path home from work had changed was because he heard of a new bookstore’s grand opening sale and had gone to check it out. It wasn’t far out of his way, just a couple blocks over and across a footbridge that stretched over some train tracks. And there had sat a boy surrounded by art.

The next day on his way home from work, only half-heartedly telling himself it was for the bookstore, he made a point of crossing the bridge. And if, on some random chance, the artist _was_ there then Souji would buy another painting for his apartment. Just one made such a difference. Two would be even better.

But the busker wasn’t there. Souji was a little taken aback by the disappointment he felt, dragging his feet home. Not that he was looking but the guy wasn’t there the day after that, or the next, or the next.

It wasn’t until a week later that he returned and without a word, Souji plopped himself into the metal chair beside his easel. The artist looked up. If he was at all surprised to see Souji, it didn’t show on his face. Nothing did.

He just said, “You want a portrait?”

Souji hadn’t thought that far ahead. He didn’t want one, but just buying a painting and going home after a week of pathetically trying to run into this guy again felt too anticlimactic.

“Sure.”

And it _was_ pathetic. Watching the artist switch what he’d been working on for a bare canvas, Souji realized he probably hadn’t spared a second thought about the creep in the suit who had loitered around him for ten minutes. If he had, they probably weren’t fond thoughts.

Souji didn’t even understand why he was doing this. It didn’t make sense. The artist was attractive, sure, but so were lots of people. Not that it even mattered without the guarantee this guy swung that way. Not that _that_ mattered because Souji wasn’t even there for that. What he _was_ there for was a mystery, but surely it wasn’t some pathetic attempt at hooking up. At least he prayed he wasn’t that hopeless.

“Do I need to do anything?”

“You can pose if you want.”

“No thanks.”

Imperceptibly, the corner of the artist’s mouth lifted. Souji blinked and it went back to normal. “Then just sit and relax.”

Souji slouched in his seat, hands hanging between his legs, but he could feel the tension in his shoulders. He stared at the ground, listening to the scratching of pencil, before his eyes roved over to the artist’s feet. Clad in old sneakers that had seen better days, with frayed holes where his toes bent. Legs crossed at the ankle and folded under his chair. Pale blue jeans that looked soft from countless washes and a band t-shirt with some picture Souji couldn’t make out, half hidden beneath a canvas jacket.

Above that, headphones hung around a neck with an Adam’s apple that moved when the artist swallowed. Wide mouth, pink lips slightly parted in concentration. Cheeks that looked soft. Light eyes that were looking right back at him.

Souji averted his gaze and turned his head, heart skipping painfully.

“It’s kind of hard doing your portrait if you won’t look at me.”

Souji turned back but kept his eyes on the ground. “Sorry.”

He didn’t know if he was apologizing for staring or making the guy’s job harder, but either way it was accepted with a simple, “No worries.”

But as time passed, Souji grew bolder. The artist looked at him off and on and even though it was only because he had to, Souji found it a little easier to use it and stare back. There was the excuse that he was making it easier for the artist, if he cared to use it. Something about referencing Souji’s eyes.

The sun was shining on the artist’s hair, bleached – from black, judging by his eyebrows – and dyed blue. Not all of the strands took the colour the same and some were more faded or vibrant than others. Thick. Long bangs that kept falling into his eyes. Now and then he would do a little hairflip to get them out of the way, or push them back, carefully avoiding touching his face with the side of his hand covered in lead residue. And paint. There were colourful smears of paint on his fingers. He must have been painting earlier.

“There.”

Souji blinked at the voice intruding on his thoughts of how long the artist’s eyelashes were. He looked around. The city was suddenly so noisy and there were people everywhere. Was it rush hour or had it been this noisy the whole time?

“Hey, pay attention.”

“Wh-?”

The artist was holding up the portrait, done in pencils and heavy inks. It was the first time Souji had ever seen an artistic interpretation of himself. He looked from it to the others on the display. None of them were so…

The artist seemed uneasy. “You don’t have to buy it if you don’t like it.”

Thinking something must’ve been showing on his face, Souji raised a hand to touch it – but found nothing. That was the problem.

“No, I’ll buy it,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Of course. You worked hard on it and you’re very talented; it’s very well done.”

“Oh.” The artist’s eyebrows twitched up. “Thank you.”

The portrait, unlike the painting of the city, did not go up on the wall. Souji didn’t know what to do with a picture of his own face. Hanging it seemed vain. This led to him sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at it.

The artist was talented, that much was true. Even through the guy’s style, it was very recognisably Souji. Staring down and a little to the left, lips slightly parted. What Souji wondered about was the dead look in his eyes. The dark circles beneath them.

He got up and walked into the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He did look tired, but he couldn’t tell if he only saw it because he wanted to see it or if he’d just never noticed it before or what.

“Another one?”

“Yes.”

Another day and Souji was sitting in front of the artist again, getting looked at like he was weird or something – which maybe he was. All the same, the artist reached for a blank canvas.

“Well, I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s been nice being able to afford to eat for once.”

Souji shifted into a more comfortable position. He was wearing casual clothes this time, since he wasn’t working that day. They might help him to look more relaxed. Maybe there had been something about his tie being too tight of the way that suit jacket was a bit too small the shoulders.

“Do you not make much money from this?”

The artist tilted his head side to side as if to say ‘so-so.’ He started drawing, eyes flicking up occasionally to reference Souji’s face. “Busking’s pretty looked down on here, right? Apparently it’s different abroad, but… that doesn’t do me any good. Also, I have to pay dues to the yakuza.”

Souji’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“If I was dumb enough not to know whose territory is where, then yeah. This bridge is close enough to the Kirijo Group’s headquarters that no gang fucks with it and cops don’t care if I’m out of the way up here on the bridge.”

That was more than Souji was expecting a sidewalk artist to have to deal with but the guy seemed unbothered. There was an air about him that said nothing really ever bothered him, but then again, Souji got told that all the time while he was internally stressing out and overanalyzing. You couldn’t always tell.

“What’s your name?”

The artist’s hand came to a stop. For an agonizingly long moment, Souji didn’t think he was going to answer.

“Minato Arisato.”

“Oh. I’m Souji Seta.”

Minato went back to drawing. Souji went back to staring.

Aside from almost constantly warring with his bangs, another habit he had was licking and chewing his lips. Face full of concentration, his tongue was constantly either sticking out or swiping side to side. Sometimes he’d gnaw on the side, pulling at a piece of skin. Absentmindedly, Souji ran a finger over his own lips. They were smooth; he didn’t chew them.

“Are you going to school for art?”

“Animation.”

“Oh.”

Perhaps noticing the way he brought an abrupt end to Souji’s attempt at conversation, Minato asked, “What about you?”

Souji scratched the bridge of his nose. “I’m a secretary. A personal assistant kind of thing. And I’m trying to get a business degree online in the meantime.”

“Wow. Sounds boring.”

“I try not to think about it.”

Minato caught his eye and again, there was just the smallest hint of a smile on his lips. That little pull in the corner. “I get that. Here.”

He turned the canvas around. This time Souji was looking at himself wearing a smile so wide his eyes were shut, hair blowing in the breeze.

“This is…”

“Bad?”

“No, really good.” Souji stared at it for a moment. “Last time you made me look miserable.”

Something about that seemed amusing to Minato. “Did I? Sorry.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Well, I mean, sort of. I thought I was just drawing a neutral expression. If I offended you, I apologize.” Minato looked down at the drawing in his hands. “You don’t have to pay for this one. Consider it an apology.”

“No, of course I’ll pay. I only thought that there was some kind of…” Suddenly it seemed like such a stupid fucking thing to be bothered over. The whole thing was so stupid and he was so wrapped up in it. What the hell was he doing? Souji got to his feet, the metal chair scraping noisily against the asphalt. “Sorry. How much?”

Minato stared at him for a moment before holding the drawing back, dangling it over his shoulder.

“I changed my mind, this one’s not for sale.”

“What?”

“I’m not selling it.”

Souji felt a stab of irritation. There was no way this guy wasn’t making fun of him but he couldn’t tell what the hell the punchline was supposed to be. “Why not?”

“It’s some of my best work, I want to put it on display to attract customers. You’ll have to come back for another portrait some other time.”

Souji stared at him, pausing with his hand in his back pocket to reach for his wallet.

“Buy something else,” Minato said, gesturing to the paintings of cityscapes and strangers. “I feel like having sushi tonight.”

Stuck somewhere between wanting to frown and smile, Souji probably made a weird face.

“Fine.”

And so his apartment got another picture. This one was a heavily stylized painting of a boy with headphones and a crooked grin. Souji didn’t know enough about colour to know if its oranges clashed with the city skyline above his couch, but he liked it. Everything was tying together with his black furniture. Though there was still the problem of his first portrait, which he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with, so it sat between the wall and his TV stand.

“Yeah, it’s kind of narcissistic,” Minato said.

“That’s what I was thinking.

“And yet here you are, sitting for a third portrait.”

A couple days later, as they had promised, Minato was back on the bridge and Souji was sitting for another portrait. Souji glared at him.

“I’m just teasing,” Minato said softly, eyes on his work. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that people love being drawn. It’s a confidence thing, I think.”

‘Confident’ wouldn’t have been a way to describe the way the portrait sitting in Souji’s living room made him feel. The smiling one, which was now leaning against the front of one of the crates for everyone to see… it wasn’t really any better, in a way. Even though he and that drawing had the same features, they looked nothing alike; Souji didn’t smile like that. Or at least he couldn’t remember the last time he did.

“But really,” Minato said, “what keeps bringing you back here? Not that I’m complaining, but…”

Souji let his gaze trail off down the bridge. People passing either gave them curious looks or stared pointedly ahead like they were something unsightly, but he didn’t have any mind to spare them.

“Don’t you have any friends?”

There was nothing mocking in Minato’s tone. It was as gentle as could be and when Souji looked back at him it was to see him wearing a bit of a sad, knowing look. A gentle breeze blew and Souji watched a strand of blue hair dance across his cheek. Souji didn’t say anything and Minato took that as an answer.

“Well,” he sighed, turning his attention back to his easel with sudden indifference, “whatever. I’m glad you came by.”

“Because I’m paying for your groceries, right?”

“Heh. Sure.”

When the portrait was done he turned it around. The Souji on canvas was looking up at something apparently wondrous. Light sparkled in his big cartoony eyes and everything. Something about it made Souji feel like he was being made fun of but he paid for it all the same. Their fingers touched when Souji took the drawing from him and Minato pulled away like he’d been shocked.

“Uh…” Minato wiped his hands on his jeans. “I mean, thanks for your patronage.”

Souji hesitated and they stood in silence for a couple moments before he mumbled a goodbye and started walking. He only got a couple steps before he turned around and said flatly, “I need more paintings for my apartment. I’ll be back.”

And there was Minato’s first real smile. It was small and subtle, but it changed much of his face.

“I’ll be here.”

Good as his word, he was. Souji bought a portrait of a young woman in a traditional red kimono, clashing pleasantly with the modern style. They spoke a little but for once there were other customers there: a couple giggling teenage girls. Souji paid for the portrait and went back home where he hung it up, read his books, thought of Minato, tried to study, thought of Minato, and did not much else.

The time after that, when Minato asked if he was back for another portrait, Souji didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what the hell to do with two let alone a third, but buying another painting and heading home would be too short of a visit.

Perhaps thinking along the same lines, Minato gestured to his easel. “What’s your favourite animal?”

“Cats,” Souji answered easily.

“Oh. I’m awful at cats.”

Souji smiled. “Show me.”

And so sitting side by side, laughing, making stupid doodles, and talking about really nothing at all, another visit passed.

It became a bit of a routine. Every couple days Souji would stop by on his way home from work or his day off – always anxious that it was too soon and he looked eager, or too late and Minato was gone forever, never to return. Sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn’t. As far as Souji could see there was no pattern to his schedule and he never asked about it – as if drawing attention to the fact it was becoming a regular thing would ruin it. Like it could only exist while going unacknowledged.

There was no need to put pressure on it and break something. It was good enough the way it was, with those few days becoming the light of Souji’s mindnumbing day-to-day. They spoke about everything and about nothing, laughed and teased, or were completely honest and had more self-aware conversations than Souji could ever remember having.

He learned things about Minato in bits and pieces shyly but freely given. The artist was working at a café to put himself through school for animation, but didn’t get enough hours and took up busking to make up for it.

“Once I factor in the supplies and the low demand,” Minato said, pausing to stifle a yawn behind his hand, “it’s almost not worth my time, but what am I gonna do about it?”

Souji always listened as he spoke and as time passed he found himself realizing that he’d been wrong – Minato wasn’t just as attractive as anyone else, he really was something beautiful. Something on the inside that manifested on the out. The way he listened and always spoke his mind unabashedly. His kindness despite the way he tried to distance himself. The way he held himself and the way he gave his smile too sparingly, making Souji always eager for another. Blue eyes that seemed to take everything in and slender fingers that put it to canvas. Souji couldn’t look away. He found he didn’t want to.

“I think I’m jealous,” Souji said.

Minato rolled his neck on his shoulders until it cracked and Souji let himself stare at the cords working under the skin. “Of?”

“You.”

Looking suddenly uneasy, Minato shifted. “What’s there to be jealous of?”

“Whatever else is going on, you’re still doing something you love. I think it's incredible.”

Minato didn’t say anything and Souji couldn’t see what his reaction was since he had started staring at the ground. There were memories stirring in his head of a time not that long ago, but so detached from who he was now that they may as well have been someone else’s.

“I used to be into music,” he said softly. “I played a couple different instruments. My parents called it useless, said I’d never make a living being a musician. They didn’t force me to quit but they didn’t support me, either. If I had fought for myself and taken a chance then maybe…”

“Don’t romanticize this too much.” Minato added a couple strokes to the portrait he was working on, not really accomplishing anything, as far as Souji could see. “At least you have people to fall back on. My parents aren’t around anymore.”

“Oh. I’m – I’m really sorry.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like –” Minato sighed. “I’m on my own and… I mean, your parents kind of sound like dicks but I bet they’d be there for you if you really needed them. At the end of the day, they’re your parents.”

Souji thought for a moment. “I doubt it.”

“Oh…”

Minato blinked at him and looked confused. Souji realized that to someone who didn’t have one, the concept of family must’ve seemed something warm and comforting, but neither of those were words he had ever attributed to his parents.

Minato shook his head and turned back to his work. “Well you know, there’s no great sense of accomplishment that you get from doing whatever you want. All it means is that there’s more room for doubt. You know how much school’s costing me? And the market’s so saturated that even if I do graduate and get anywhere, there’s no guarantee I’ll make it. If there is some great feeling in doing what you like, then I haven’t found it yet.” He pushed his bangs out of his eyes and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Although maybe it’s because I don’t have anyone to share it with. Hearing you say that was kind of nice.”

Their eyes met and they smiled a little as a wordless understanding shot between them. They were both trapped by various circumstance, but for now they had that little spot on the bridge together. A few hours where nothing else mattered.

Souji never asked for more portraits, but sometimes Minato still made them.

“You’ve got nice bone structure,” was all he said (and very casually at that) when Souji asked why. “And I can use the practice.”

Sometimes as Minato drew and did that thing with his tongue, Souji stared and thought about how nice it might be to kiss him. Sometimes when the breeze blew his hair, he wondered if it was as soft as it looked and thought about running his fingers through it. It reminded him of blue slushies and sometimes he wondered if that was how Minato tasted. Sometimes when Minato spoke, Souji thought about how nice it might be to wake up to that voice. To hear him talk in a quiet home every day instead of stolen moments sometimes cut off by the rush of trains and the ambience of the noisy city.

It wasn’t healthy and he knew that, but he had nothing else and he knew that even better.

One day, standing at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change, things started cracking. No one bumped into him, he didn’t move at all, but he must not have closed his briefcase properly because it swung open. Everything inside – files and important documents he took home to work on for his boss – they all blew away, scattering down the street. Stark white sheets against the grey concrete.

The people around him gave him awkward looks. When the light changed they crossed the street without a second thought. Carrying on with their lives while he watched his blow away, numb and completely unaffected. This must’ve been the person Minato saw when he drew those dead eyes.

Eventually the light changed again and Souji crossed the street, breaking into a run and leaving his briefcase on the ground behind him. He sprinted to the bridge.

Minato wasn’t there. No different than any other time he hadn’t been, but this time it felt like a stab to the chest.

Left without another choice – nowhere else to go, no other friends – he turned on his heel and went home. Alone in his apartment, he stared up at the ceiling while everything turned over and over in his head until it made far less sense than ever before.

‘Don’t romanticize this too much,’ he’d said, but that was exactly what Souji was doing. Putting meaning into things that had none. The dead eyes of a portrait or a smile he’d never worn, he twisted them to mean what he wanted them to and turned Minato into something all about himself. All for some shallow escape from his dull life.

To some degree, at least. Things weren’t so black and white; there was something more, he could feel it. The doubt came in a voice too much like his father’s, the same one that told him him it was idiotic to give up the steady paycheck of an office job. That he should just keep his head down and do what was easy. If he hadn’t listened to that voice then he’d be doing something he loved. Instead he was alone, miserable, and withdrawn. But maybe it wasn’t too late to take things into his own hands. Even if things had started for all the wrong reasons, they didn’t have to end that way.

Minato was there the next day. With an erratic heart, Souji sat beside him as he sketched the portraits of a couple foreign tourists, listening to him say the bare minimum as they spoke at him, not to him. They told him all about their trip and how much they were liking Japan while Minato just nodded and raised his eyebrows in a way that was supposed to look engaged but only came off as sarcastic.

When they finally got up and left, Minato cracked his knuckles and sat up, arching his back until it cracked too. Souji watched his fingers massage his spine at the small of his back.

“What are you doing after this?”

“Going home and sleeping.” Bent over with his elbows on his knees, Minato looked and sounded exhausted. There was a pause, then he added suspiciously, “Why?”

“Let’s go for something to eat.”

Minato didn’t move for a while.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Souji’s heart jumped into his throat and strangled every word he could’ve said. The silence stretched for so long it became almost unbearably awkward. Minato sighed and got to his feet.

“It’s been fun,” he said, starting to pack everything up, “but – but we should just end whatever this is. Appreciate it for what it was and don’t expect it to be anything more.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” Minato gathered up his paintings and began stacking them carelessly. “Two ships passing in the night or whatever.”

Souji got to his feet too. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don’t want that.”

Minato straightened up, looking taken aback. Souji’s voice had come out far more aggressive than he had intended and he was vaguely aware of a couple people looking at them as they walked by.

“Give me a chance,” Souji said, willing his voice back down to a normal intensity. He shook his head, nearly sick to his stomach with nerves, but it felt good to finally put his foot down instead of just letting things take their course. “I don’t want to let you get away.”

“How are you not embarrassed saying shit like that?” Minato looked uncomfortable, fidgeting with the cap of a marker he was holding. “Look, without the novelty of – all this, you’ll get bored of me. The way we’ve been meeting is surreal and I’ve loved it, but without it, you’ll –”

“No I won’t,” Souji said flatly.

“You _will_ ,” Minato sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily. “You will. I know you will but I still have to stop myself from setting up and hoping you’ll come by every day, I get disappointed when you don’t, and… it’s pathetic. We should just –”

Souji stared at him, heart soaring. “You like me?”

“Are you serious? Is that really all you got from that?”

“If you like me, then go out with me.”

“What are you, thirteen?”

“Give me a chance. And I’ll give you a chance and we’ll try this together.”

Minato laughed a little sadly and turned his head, tapping his marker against his jaw. He looked contemplative, if not troubled. Souji’s hands were shaking so he put them on his hips. That just felt confrontational. He tried sticking them in his pockets, which just felt too aloof. Crossing his arms was like both combined but by that point he was too aware of them to just let them hang at his side. He was shaking his hands like he was trying to rid them of water when Minato sighed.

“I know a good ramen stand a couple blocks over,” he said. Souji’s heart skipped a beat. “But you have to help me carry all this stuff to my car.”

A light feeling filled Souji to the brim and he couldn’t fight a smile. Minato smiled back begrudgingly, lowering his eyes to the ground and blushing. Souji took a step forward but halted abruptly, his hand doing this weird thing where he pulled back in the middle of reaching out.

“Can I-?”

“What?” Minato looked up, noticing the way he was standing close and his cheeks flushed an even brighter pink. “Oh. Uh, okay. Yeah.”

A couple people were on the bridge a ways down but Souji barely had thought to spare about how public everything was before he was placing a hand against Minato’s cheek and bowing his head to kiss him.

It was quick. Minato’s lips were chapped and he didn’t taste like slushies. It was all incredibly normal, not at all like a movie, and that was what Souji loved about it. It was one of the most genuine things he’d felt for longer than he cared to remember.

Minato ended the kiss with a second, quicker kiss. Then he was looking down at his feet and smiling wider than Souji had ever seen from him.

“Are you ready?”

Souji took his hand. “Very.”

**Author's Note:**

> if it's a universe where it's art that minato gets into rather than photography or music, i always imagine his style being similar to kaneoya sachiko but that's just pure wish fulfillment on my part bcuz she's me fav. but tbh the entire time i was writing this, [this](http://s12.postimg.org/gce7q9rn1/03_2.png) was all i was thinking about


End file.
